


Release

by rendezvous



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Catharsis, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm, Self-Reflection, but it falls under that category regardless, more akin to an extremely frustrated stim, rated T for explicit language mostly, the self-harm isn't quite as brutal as the term self-harm denotes, you don't have to squint for the ship this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendezvous/pseuds/rendezvous
Summary: Yusuke, having been in the longest and deepest creative block of his life, reflects upon his perceived stagnation. As it slowly eats away at him, he finds himself with no other choice than to reach out to the only person who had ever truly understood him.He finds that it was one of the best choices he's ever made.





	Release

**Author's Note:**

> Written straight from the heart.

Art was all Yusuke ever thought about.

Even when he wasn’t physically drawing, he still was in his mind. Everything he looked at was fascinating, something to observe and take note of, something to consider weaving into his next work the moment he had the chance.

Every time Ryuji folded his arms, Yusuke’s gaze transfixed upon the depth, shadow, and shape of the ulna bone beneath. Any time Akira cracked that mischievous, crooked smile of his, Yusuke imagined each muscle in Akira’s face that constricted to create such a genuine expression. And even though the texture of Haru’s hand-grown vegetables were revolting, he still marveled at their brilliant color and organic form (as well as the muddled-up mush he spit out on taste-sensitive instinct).

Everywhere he looked, there was always something beautiful to be painted. Something to spark his imagination for a new piece. He always stopped dead in his tracks whenever he stumbled upon a glorious, authentic presentation of negative space in nature, the streets, his school. He could _barely_ contain himself upon discovering one day that Akira’s various classroom chalkboard drawings somehow managed to _perfectly_ align with the Golden Ratio. Art was everywhere.

Art was everywhere.

… Art was everywhere but where he needed it to be.

Yusuke hadn’t even noticed the forceful slapping of his own palm to his head as he sat still in front of a more-or-less blank canvas, the F-graphite pencil in his hand just barely touched to the center. _No, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Terrible! Absolutely deplorable! Do it correctly! **CORRECTLY!**_

The dull, throbbing pain in his skull mattered not, for his internal frustration was far too dire to concern himself with external harm. _No, no, NO! BETTER! FASTER! EFFICIENT! DO IT NOW! YOU’VE CONSISTENTLY DONE IT WITH EASE FOR YEARS PRIOR! WHY NOT **NOW?!**_

He hadn’t even noticed the sudden silence that had weighted the room as his teacher and classmates stared, frightened, at their troubled peer who was literally beating himself over the head.

 

* * *

 

 

Occasionally, Yusuke would feel an urge to write – he kept an intermittently-updated journal for this purpose – and, with his exemplary vocabulary and natural way with words, its quality was sublime, or as he was so often told. Writing, unlike illustrating, was something he rarely, if ever at all, constantly criticized himself for. Words came so easily to him, he’d often find himself lost in his casual prose in the same exact tunnel vision that narrowed when he had his focuses set on drawing.

On one hand, he enjoyed this, as it served as brief reprieve from his visionary guilt, and writing was a pleasant way to express himself through letter when he couldn’t translate his thoughts to pencil.

On the other, it upset him deeply. Visual art was his _passion_ , his lifeblood, his very reason for existing – his _destiny._ Writing was simply a hobby. Why, then, did writing often come so much easier to him than art? Why was he so unconcerned with his literary ability while constantly fretting over his artistic aptitude? Was he meant to be a _writer?_ If he were a _true_ artist, then art should always come the easiest to him, should never cause him strife, no matter the circumstances, correct?

Could it be that what he once thought were his life’s absolute essence and an occasional shrug-of-the-shoulders practice were… the other way around?

Yusuke grimaced at the mere thought. No, that couldn’t be it. It wasn’t possible.

He very much respected writing, but he was no writer. He was an artist.

Yet he kept writing anyway, for it sprouted a small seed of relief to fill the rot in his chest left by his decaying muse.

 

* * *

 

 

“You shouldn’t compare yourself to others so much,” Akira had suggested to him one day. “You’re just fine where you are. Go at your own pace.”

His own pace? Paradoxical. He had no pace to begin with.

Yusuke had come to dread his art classes at Kosei. Everywhere he looked, he saw not inspiration, but competition. His peers were so much _better._ He was falling behind quickly, a rapid descent with an end more horrifying than death.

Today, he had decided to disguise his head-hitting as simple sudden head-scratching. He had barely been in class for fifteen minutes and he was already on the brink of tears.

He hit himself as hard as he could to hold them back, and explained it away to his teacher that it was naught but a gesture of brilliant realization. His reddened eyes and running nose were simply a byproduct of his sudden, moving, _gorgeous_ inspiration.

… Paradoxical.

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually, as he was told by Akira, Yusuke had to stop beating himself in the head at _some_ point.

For once, Yusuke took this advice to heart, but found it difficult to suppress the urge whenever the dreadful idea of having a completely different life’s purpose than he’d always thought to have known arose.

But when he wrote, it was quite difficult to knock any sense into himself. Typing required two hands.

He stared at his laptop screen deadenedly while his fingers did the aimless talking.

Yusuke was furious with himself for enjoying it.

 

* * *

 

 

By now, Yusuke felt nearly hopeless. His sketchbooks were barren, his assignments mediocre and lifeless, his sketches hardly more than a few faint circles and crosshairs.

This block of inspiration, motivation, _urgent need_ to illustrate had gone on for so long that he had now begun to resent his peers for their consistent productivity and rapid improvement, their ability having far surpassed his own in what seemed like mere seconds. The jealousy ate away at him to the bone.

His classmates were the vultures, and he was the rotting carcass on which they feasted.

 

* * *

 

 

One night, at three in the morning, in a last-ditch effort to knock some (proverbial) sense into himself, Yusuke took a different approach. Art was brimming with emotion, life, the past, present, future. Capturing this on canvas was currently exhaustingly difficult.

“Why not try a new medium?” was Haru’s offered advice earlier that day. “Perhaps a change of pace in your artistic process would nourish you back into your regular routine?”

Yusuke had actually never thought of that, and thanked Haru many, many, _many_ times before she timidly interrupted him – she was delighted to have aided him in any way, but her English class was in two minutes, and she had already been tardy twice this week by way of oversleeping.

“I wish you the best of luck, Yusuke-kun!” she had called out kindly as she gathered her belongings and sprinted upstairs to class.

_The best of luck…_

The sketchbook in his lap that had fallen into empty pages was riddled with small damp splatters and pathetic clumps of drool and phlegm.

_… A new medium._

 

* * *

 

 

Now, Yusuke felt _absolutely_ hopeless. No matter how hard he tried, how closely he followed advice and art prompts, how many mediums he had cycled through, how many attempts at studying he made… It simply was not working.

His hand trembled as he moved his clean acrylic brush from the blank canvas in front of him.

He cared not about the mess his brightly-colored palette had made as it splattered to his feet.

Everyone was wrong, and he had failed them all.

Yusuke Kitagawa was an artist no more.

 

* * *

 

 

When he had first heard the loud message notification blip from his phone, Akira was annoyed. Every once in a while was fine – he usually couldn’t sleep until midnight or so anyway – but couldn’t Mishima wait just a _few more hours_ to tell him whoever was wreaking havoc around Tokyo _this_ time? It was three in the _fucking_ morning.

Akira curtly grabbed his phone to read the message from his notifications – thank _God_ that was even an option – and groaned loudly enough to stir Morgana in his sleep at the bleary wall of text that lied before him. He dropped his phone back onto his bed without really even reading the message at all, curling one arm under his pillow and dragging his blanket back across his lower body.

_Who the hell would expect anyone to read that much at all, let alone at three –_

Akira shot up in bed immediately, startling Morgana awake.

“Whuh – Huh? Hey, hey hey! Where are you going?” Morgana followed Akira to the storage rack next to the sofa where he kept all of his clothing. “It’s…” The cat stifled a yawn. “It’s waaaaay too early to be going out this… late…”

“This is an exception.” Akira’s firm tone of voice was sabotaged by Morgana’s contagious yawning. “Hey, no offense, but… This is also a private kind of thing,” he uttered at the barely audible padding of tiny paws still following him across the attic.

Morgana managed a sleepy, smug chuckle. “ _Ohhhhohoho,_ **_I_** see. Just don’t get into _too_ much trouble out there, okay?”

 _If this cat were a person I’d slap him right the fuck now,_ Akira thought sluggishly as he zipped up his hoodie and made his way downstairs.

 

* * *

 

 

“Thank you very much for coming.”

Akira took a seat next to Yusuke on the docks, letting his legs dangle just lowly enough to not submerge his boots in the water. Ichigaya was awfully different at this hour – it was almost never completely empty like this. “It’s no prob,” Akira replied, stifling another yawn. “You said it was urgent… What’s up?” Though he was exhausted, his tone of voice still managed to read with sincere concern.

He spent the long silence that followed by aimlessly dipping the tips of his boots into the water and returning the _plip-plip-plip_ fish faces he was met with in exchange. He didn’t mind the wait – he was no stranger to Yusuke’s occasional long pauses between conversations. The guy was a very deep thinker, after all.

“Thank… Thank you… _very much_ for coming,” Yusuke finally said.

Akira winced at the whiplash he gave himself as he jerked his head toward Yusuke upon hearing the foreign falter in his voice. “Whoah… Hey, are you alright?”

“N-Not at all,” Yusuke blurted softly. “I’m not… I’ll… I’m not… I’ll _n-never_ be alright…”

Akira smeared away the near-instant empathic tears of his own with his forearm. “Wait, wait, what happened? Is everything okay?”

“It **_ISN’T_** ,” Yusuke sobbed, deeply, raspy – Akira knew immediately from that hoarse voice that Yusuke had been this tormented for hours – “ ** _N-N-NOTHING_** is, is, is, i-i-is, okay, and, and, and, a-and it never, never will be a-again…”

On instinct, Akira swept Yusuke into a hug, feeling his own heart break at the violent shaking of Yusuke’s shoulders as he bawled almost deafeningly, hunched over, tears that wouldn’t stop flowing dripping into the saltwater below.

“J-Just tell me what happened,” Akira said, nearly pleading. No use in trying to hide his own tears now.

It took a minute for Yusuke to calm down, for his jerky, shallow, struggled breathing to even out, to stop sobbing long enough to slow down into gentler, less painful crying, to regain his typically soft and flat tone of voice.

Akira hugged him the entire way through without a word, letting go only when Yusuke shifted to sit up straight.

“Th-Thank you very much f-for coming,” Yusuke whispered in between sniffles. Though his hands covered his eyes all but entirely, the tears kept flowing. “I… Y-You, you were the only person I could think of wh-who could… p-possibly under, under… stand…”

Akira took a deep breath before replying – he didn’t want to make Yusuke feel even worse upon hearing his own trembling voice. “Understand, understand what? H-Hey, tell me what’s wrong, i-it’s okay, we can talk as long as you need to…” He’d done a _terrible_ job trying to mask it, but, hell, he tried the best he could!

Yusuke lowered his hands from his face to look Akira directly in the eye – their both reddened, puffy eyes – and grit his teeth, still shaking. “I… I-I’m so… I apologize, I –“

“Just tell me,” Akira breathed. “Please, just… Let it out. All of it.”

At the near-saintly, gentle quiver in Akira’s voice, Yusuke sobbed a little harder. “I-I… My life… My life, life, h-has no purpose…”

“What… What do you mean?” Akira tried his best not to sound alarmed.

Yusuke sniffled. “I… My muse has… has vanished… I am… I am n-no artist,” he cried, hunching over again, beating himself over the head as hard as he possibly could. “I-I-I-I-I’M IN DENIAL! A-ALL OF MY LIFE, DENIAL, DE, DE, DE, DEDEDEDENIAL… A FRAUD, FRAUD, _FRAUDULENT,_ TH-THAT’S ALL I AM! I H-HAVE NOTHING! I… I **_AM_** NOTHING!” His neck almost looked broken from how hard he was hitting himself.

Akira’s heart _sank_ to the deepest depths of the water below them both. “Hey,” he whispered, “ _Hey,_ ” he gingerly took hold of Yusuke’s wrist, tired and limp from the rapid beating, but still going, as though he were punishing himself for merely existing. “H-Hey… Remember the shirt thing?”

“Sh-Sh-Shirt… I-I… I don’t… deserve… th-the shirt… thing.”

Akira grabbed Yusuke’s wrist, forcefully, just before he delivered the heaviest blow to his head he somehow thought was warranted. “S-Stop it! Please!”

“I… can’t,” Yusuke hung his head.

Akira grabbed Yusuke’s other wrist just as he raised it.

“Seriously... Stop it… Please… D-Don’t hurt yourself. Tell me what’s wrong.” By now, Akira was _begging_.

Yusuke breathed in heavily before looking over at his friend, furrowing his brow.

Akira furrowed his own in return as he slowly loosened his grip on both of Yusuke’s wrists. Akira breathed a quiet, heavy sigh of relief when Yusuke brought his hands to the bottom hem of his shirt, folding it over, then under, then over, then under. He rocked in place slowly, trying his hardest to focus on the alternative stress reliever he and Akira had worked out weeks ago.

“Why… Why don’t you think you’re an artist? Y-You mean the block?”

Yusuke, hands still occupied with the hem, turned his head to look Akira straight in the eye – a despondent, hollow, defeated stare. “It… I don’t think it will ever… I-I don’t think… It… It won’t ever…”

Akira felt guilty not knowing how to respond. He chose to stay quiet and listen instead.

Having finally calmed down sufficiently, Yusuke hung his head again. “N-Nothing… has worked. I’ve tried… everything. _Everything,_ ” he repeated, voice cracking so hard it practically split in two. “I-It’s all… pointless… I don’t… I have no options... Exhausted them all… I can’t… I’m… I don’t… I don’t know what to do,” he cried out, unable to help himself from raising his hand again.

Akira caught it with fierce precision.

Yusuke’s face contorted into something Akira thought to be devastatingly inexplicable. “I-I’m… I… I’m s-s-s-sorry… I-I can’t even do _that_ r-right…”

“It’s okay,” Akira said softly, lowering Yusuke’s wrist to the dock, lacing their fingers together. “Don’t beat yourself up abou—U-Uh, I mean…”

“N-No, no,” said Yusuke, shaking his head, free hand having returned to the hem of his shirt. “I… I know what you meant…” He heaved another deep sigh. “Th... Thank you...”

“Don’t mention it.”

A miserable silence befell them both, so long it felt as though time had stopped altogether.

“I… I simply… cannot draw… anymore. It’s… It’s…” Yusuke screwed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I-I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I-I-I can’t…”

Akira leaned his head on Yusuke’s shoulder in the hopes that would bring him _any_ scrap of relief possible. “Hey… Lots of artists get blocks,” he murmured, his words rumbling warmly up Yusuke’s neck. “Van Gogh hit them all the time. I’ve read about them _so_ many times. Practically in everything I’ve ever read about him altogether.”

“Van Gogh was one of the world’s greatest artists. He _always_ overcame them. H-He,” Yusuke’s voice trembled, “He was… H-He… was…” Yusuke’s once gentle grasp of Akira’s hand was now a vice grip. “A true… _a-art…ist._ ” The sob in that final syllable was softer, but heavier and the most broken Akira had ever heard.

“… So are you.”

Yusuke grimaced. “I _thought_ you would understand.”

“I do. W-Well, kind of…” Akira sat up a little straighter, catching a quick glimpse of Yusuke’s free hand – still fiddling with his shirt. Relief. “I’m not just saying that.”

“They _all_ say that,” Yusuke replied bitterly.

Akira gave himself an extra serving of whiplash with how quickly he turned to look at Yusuke. “ _Agh_ – N-No, I don’t mean it like you think I do.”

Yusuke slowly turned his head to return Akira’s intense gaze. “Then how _do_ you mean it?” He spoke so quietly, the gentle rippling of the seawater against the docks almost overshadowed it.

“I mean it because we’re here.”

Yusuke looked puzzled.

“If you weren’t a true artist… You wouldn’t have even asked anybody to talk with you about it.” Akira sat up as straightly as he could, challenging Yusuke’s already painful grip on their hands. “If you weren’t a true artist, you wouldn’t be so _devastated_ that you can’t draw right now.”

Yusuke’s lips parted, his brow furrowed. “I… Wh… What?”

Akira fought back empathic tears of his own. “If you weren’t a _true_ artist,” he clutched his friend’s hand even _tighter_ , “You would have given up long before now. I-If you weren’t a true artist, you would have already moved on to something else.” He took a moment to allow himself a deep breath. “If you weren’t a true artist… We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Relief _smothered_ Akira as he saw the glimmer of realization slowly dawn on Yusuke’s face.

The longest silence by far overcame them both. It took several minutes before Yusuke broke it with the absolute _loudest_ sob Akira had ever heard in his entire life. So deep, so deafening, so _raw,_ it sounded as though he’d just seen someone _die_ right before his eyes.

But Yusuke was laughing beneath it.

“M-M-My… G-God… I… I can’t… I…”

“You don’t have to.” Akira let go of his friend’s hand and swept him into another firm, gentle hug. “You get it now… right?”

Yusuke nodded, eyes screwed shut, a clenched grin filling his face. The tears seemed endless. He hugged Akira back tightly.

 _Very_ tightly.

A little _too_ tightly –

“Oh!” Yusuke broke contact, nudging Akira back by the shoulders. “I’m… I’m sorry… I simply… ahah… I-I… I simply…” he started to giggle through those rivers of tears. “I… Akira… I owe you my life.”

Akira laughed a little too, breath shaky from his own crying. “You don’t owe me _shit_ , Yusuke.”

“Akira,” Yusuke insisted, “I… It feels as though – no – I _have_ been **_reborn._** ”

Akira didn’t really know how to answer that, so he just followed Yusuke’s lead – laughing through tears and leaning, bumping against each other through bodily shocks of equal parts relief and joy. Akira noticed how weightless his friend suddenly felt.

As their laughter died down, the two fell back into silence, although this time, it was light… airy… sunny in the deep black sky above them.

“I’m… I am awfully tired.”

“Me too.”

Yusuke was the first to rise, holding out a hand to Akira for no real reason – Akira could get up by himself just fine – but Akira accepted it, letting Yusuke lift him to his feet.

“We… Y-Yes, let us head home. Thankfully, the moon is full enough to light our paths efficiently and without means of detection.”

Akira nodded, cracking that signature crooked smile. “Be safe on your way, ‘kay?”

“Likewise. Oh, and, Akira…”

Akira turned his head back just as he was beginning to walk home. “Yeah?”

“… _Thank you_ ,” Yusuke whispered breathlessly.

Akira smiled again. “… Don’t mention it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yusuke's Confidante arc really hit me hard! I cried through so much of it... I'm in a near-identical pinch like that myself right now, and I've been thinking about Yusuke and how he might have dealt with it differently if it were even more severe. (Well... In hindsight I suppose that's a bit generous. Self-indulgent projecting is probably more accurate.)
> 
> Let's get back to drawing again together, Yusuke! <3
> 
> I cried a lot while writing this, but it was the nice kind of crying. It was so fun - I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing!


End file.
